Please refer to the poem to contemplate the following, and make your own connection of faith within you.

1. Right before the talk linked above, I play a recording of Unity co-founder Myrtle Fillmore reading this prayer. It must have been made in the 1920’s or early ’30’s. On a record of course… So, this prayer must have been important to Myrtle, because as far as I know, we don’t have many recordings from her. I wonder how much it meant to her, and why…

2. The poem is called Prayer *of* Faith, not Prayer for Faith. So, before saying this prayer cold-turkey, I recommend meditating to the point where you’re in a peaceful state of mind and entertaining the possibility of having faith.

Otherwise, saying this prayer could really stir up angry feelings. Which wouldn’t be bad! Then you could release those – that is, if you could step back, observe the feelings, and choose to let them go. Often that is not the case, and we get caught up in anger. Begin using this prayer when you’re already in a good place, so that when you’re not, you can remember how it felt to pray this when you had a better-feeling thought. Then the prayer, having prior good feelings for you, can bring you back to that state of mind/heart.

3. This is a well-known Unity prayer. However, I’m personally not sure whether the author was a member of Unity, or if Unity “adopted” the prayer. Either way, we discussed in class how these lines appeal to a much wider audience than Unity. Christians in general, and many people of other religious and spiritual paths, accept these lines as Truth and take comfort in them:

God is my help in every need;
God does my every hunger feed;
God walks beside me, guides my way
Through every moment of the day.

4. Now we come to more metaphysical, Unity lines. Here, we affirm our oneness with the all-providing, ever-present God we’ve already brought to mind. We affirm our wisdom, truth, patience, kindness, and love, which we have and are, because God has and is:

I now am wise, I now am true,
Patient, kind, and loving, too;
All things I am, can do, and be,
Through Christ the Truth, that is in me.

Again, Christ appeals to a Christian audience. In traditional Christianity, Christ is a man, and in metaphysics, a state of being/consciousness. Our similarities are interesting, and it’s good to become aware of them.

5. Next are lines that prove my suggestion to meditate first! If you affirm these lines when you’re feeling bad, chances are you’ll get more bad feelings. Your feeling is strongest, not your words. So always, when using prayers or affirmations of any kind, come to a good-feeling place first, through meditation or whatever works for you. Then, affirm, as you feel the affirmation to be true. In this way you maximize the power of feelings and words:

God is my health, I can’t be sick;
God is my strength, unfailing, quick;
God is my all, I know no fear,
Since God and Love and Truth are here

I address this in the talk I linked to above. You may appear sick right now. But know that sickness is not who and what you are. It is not your being, your worth, your life. It is what it is: just an appearance. As I said, affirm this in a peaceful state of mind! Meditation has cumulative results. The more you tip the balance of your life in a positive direction, the more appearances in your life will improve.

For at least 8 years, from the remembered, conscious choice to begin a spiritual practice, until 2 years ago, I would not meditate. I could not. Because I thought it was too hard, complicated, I couldn’t do it, needed tools, and so on…

So for me, now, to recommend meditation to you, is not just a recommendation as something you “should” do! It’s because of my personal results. I now meditate daily, and I feel off/unbalanced if I don’t. I value the inner connections I make during meditation. When we get our ego, or monkey mind, quiet, we make great discoveries, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Don’t take my word for it! I always say, no one can create an experience for anyone else. I cannot create a meditative experience or good feeling for you. But I can encourage, affirm, and hold quiet space for you. And that is what I do. The true power in your life comes when you, yourself, meditate or make inner connections of your own.

Prayer is for us. It is not for God/Spirit. It’s a connecting tool, so that we can become consciously aware of our oneness with God. Meditation is the listening tool. Prayer is the talking tool. They are 2 sides of the same coin. The coin itself, is life, or consciousness. Prayer and meditation both, are important aspects of that consciousness. Use them, change them, make them yours! Because the power is in your consciousness, aka your state of being, awareness, or focus.

A message of Fall (in the Northern hemisphere) and how we can use Fall and every season to our best advantage if we choose to “live like a leaf”. This was my talk on Sunday, October 14, 2012, at Unity of Reading. Based on the following selection by Unity co-founder Myrtle Fillmore and Ecclesiastes 3:1.

Healing Letters

by Myrtle Fillmore
pp. 42-43

Day and Night Experience

“His delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”–Psalms 1:2

“Day and night” does not necessarily mean twenty-four hours of time. It has reference to the daytime of the soul–when it has light, and everything seems to be going smoothly, and it can see evidence that the divine law is working; and to the nighttime of the soul–when a person has gone as far as the light of his consciousness will take him in a given direction, and when he must turn within and wait for more light.

You may not see how the law of the Lord is working for you, but it is working just as surely as the law of growth is operative during nighttime. Nighttime is necessary to the proper growth and development of plants, just as the daytime and sunlight with their warmth are necessary.

We wouldn’t say that “business is dull” with the plants during the night or that they are not receiving their good. On the contrary, we have many times seen a transformation through the night. A plant that had seemed almost dead for lack of moisture and the ability to draw from the earth the required elements will be crisp and strong and very desirable in the morning!

Had it not been for the night with its blessings, that plant would have ceased to grow and to yield its helpfulness to us.

When “nighttime” comes to us, we should use it as a quiet time of great help. If we do, it will afford us time for meditation and the careful study of ourselves and our present methods and plan of service. It will cause us to turn more to the universal law and its operation and less to our personal efforts and the ways of others.

In this nighttime we are to rest in the spiritual knowledge and assurance that our growth is precious in the sight of the Lord. We are to rejoice that the divine law is ever operative, ever working to prosper all of God’s children. We are to give thanks that our affairs are in the Father’s hands and under the management of divine wisdom.

We shall rise up to be glad for this “night” in which we have turned within to the great stream of light, life, love, substance, and power, and have let them flow silently into our consciousness, to raise it to the Christ understanding. As we do this, we will know that we are:

“Like a tree planted by streams of water,
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.”–Psalms 1:3